Sunday, November 17, 2013

A thought on gay movies

Since coming out last year, I finally watched some gay themed movies. I mentioned Maurice, and of course there was Brokeback Mountain and Milk, and Netflix has let me try out a number of others for a low monthly cost. I found a few gems, like Priest and Far From Heaven, and really enjoyed Clapham Junction. My real love has been the documentaries, but that's just outside the scope of what I want to talk about now.

There was one I finished watching last night that actually took me months to watch. It's called eCupid, and it's about a guy who's about to turn 30 and is bored with his relationship, and installs this curious app called "eCupid" that promises to find him love. What it does is mess up his life so that he and his boyfriend break up and he can practically choose any guy he wants. In the end, he realizes he's been a selfish jerk and he gets back together with his boyfriend.

I've heard plenty about stereotyping gays and while this movie didn't present a host of flamboyant "queens," just about everyone except two characters were gay men, all but one being fit and handsome. (That one character was actually pretty cool.) As a dieting 27 year old who probably isn't going to get any better looking without surgery, I did have to do a double take about this. Yes, it's set in West Hollywood, but the idea presented is that this is what we are, when I know there's many people who don't fit the bill at all.

The other issue was that there was only one female character, played by Morgan Fairchild who voices the app and plays a waitress who helps our wayward couple get back together. It isn't so much that it was a chiefly male cast (otherwise, let's chuck The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies in), but that women were being undervalued in their roles in the gay community, just because we aren't interested in romantic relations with them. We have sisters, mothers, aunts, friends, coworkers, even ex-girlfriends and wives, and people we pass on the street. I'm not going to accuse the filmmakers of misogyny, but the lack of women felt disturbing.

I don't know. I mean, the big message was good, be good to your partner, but the smaller messages kind of spoiled it for me.